Jesus Christ Superstar Paul Nolan stars in a new production of the musical on Broadway at the Neil Simon Theater.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Spoiler alert! Oh, just kidding. It will surely come as a surprise to no one that the title character in “Jesus Christ Superstar” does not come to a happy end, drifting blissfully into old age and obscurity on the sands of Judea. His gruesome death is depicted with unusually lavish flair in the director Des McAnuff’s flashy revival of the pop-rock musical by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber that opened Thursday night at the Neil Simon Theater.

After he has been dragged off by Roman thugs, hands bound and a look of sorrowful resignation on his face, Jesus (Paul Nolan) returns for a flogging, with each stroke of the lash counted down and represented by vivid red splashes streaking across the electronic back wall of the set. The metal staircase on which he is splayed is then turned to face the audience, the better to expose the bleeding welts criss-crossing his back.

Next come the crown of thorns and Jesus’ agonized crawl across the stage, bearing the weight of his own crucifix. And at last, after making yet another entrance, Mr. Nolan strikes the pose immortalized in centuries of art, clad in a demure loincloth, arms held out to his sides, one leg artfully bent in front of the other, head hanging down in tortured exhaustion. Gently spotlighted, he rises from the stage as if by magic, while a giant cross, pulsing with hot gold lights, descends from above to meet him. Mr. Lloyd Webber’s churning guitar rock hits a climactic note, and the audience erupts in excited applause.

If this delirious reception for a glitzy depiction of the most influential execution in world history doesn’t strike you as remotely absurd, Mr. McAnuff’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” may just be the right musical for you. I have to confess to finding the show alternately hilarious and preposterous — if often infectiously melodic — during the two hours’ busy traffic of Mr. McAnuff’s brisk and lucid staging.

Jesus’ apostles and other followers are clad in chic gray street wear and tumble and slide across the stage with impressive athleticism in the show’s opening minutes, presumably in flight from their black-leather-clad oppressors. The daily countdown to the Crucifixion is displayed on an electronic ticker of the kind that snakes around buildings in Times Square. This is a story for all times, the production asserts, if not for all tastes.

It arrives with much of its original Canadian cast intact. The standout performance comes from Josh Young as a vocally lustrous and charismatic Judas Iscariot, well known for betraying his onetime mentor with a fatal kiss. In Mr. McAnuff’s production that kiss is particularly fraught, since the show trains a subtle focus on the tense triangle among its three central characters — Jesus, Judas and Mary Magdalene (Chilina Kennedy).

Photo

Paul Nolan, left, as Jesus, with Josh Young as Judas Iscariot in "Jesus Christ Superstar."Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Mr. Young’s Judas sings repeatedly of his disappointment at Jesus’ betrayal of his ideals. But the hungry looks Judas repeatedly casts suggest that sexual jealousy plays no small role in his decision to turn the object of his agonized affection over to the Roman rulers, to whom this “King of the Jews” is a prickly thorn in the side.

Mr. McAnuff’s staging is rich in portentous looks, actually. Mr. Nolan’s serenely suffering Jesus is often to be found at or near the lip of the stage, peering into the middle distance with his piercing blue eyes, as if stoically watching his destiny unfolding on an HDTV screen at the back of the theater. Ms. Kennedy sometimes joins him in this pastime, as do some members of the chorus. If a musical were to be judged by the amount of time its characters spent gazing meaningfully into the audience, this production would be trumps.

Vocally it is impressive. Mr. Young’s voice is rangy, powerful and pure. Ms. Kennedy performs her solo, the onetime pop hit “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” with a graceful simplicity, although her Mary Magdalene tends to be overshadowed throughout by the more intense histrionics of Mr. Young’s conniving Judas. Mr. Nolan manages the murderous tessitura of the climactic “Gethsemane” number with impressive aplomb.

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But even during this highly dramatic passage, I found myself wincing at Mr. Rice’s lyrics: “Show me there’s a reason for your wanting me to die,” Jesus sings, “You’re far too keen on where and how but not so hot on why.” (Not so hot, that.)

The agonies of Jesus are terrible to behold, of course, but on a far more trivial level one of the agonies of “Jesus Christ Superstar” is the unhappy combination of Mr. Lloyd Webber’s stick-in-your-head melodies and the often flat-footed lyrics they are wedded to. In 1971, when the show was first produced on Broadway, Mr. Rice’s slangy libretto presumably struck a with-it note that now hits the ear — well, my ear at least — as distinctly silly.

Speaking of which, the musical’s one overtly comic number, in which Herod, played with lascivious glee by Bruce Dow, taunts Jesus with mocking references to his spiritual powers (“Prove to me that you’re no fool/Walk across my swimming pool”) isn’t really the camp highlight of the production. Nor does Tom Hewitt, got up in a louche purple velvet suit as Pontius Pilate, pour on the villainy in lavish doses.

No, the kitsch apotheosis is surely the garish scene in which Jesus chases the money lenders from the temple. Here Mr. McAnuff dresses the chorus in the costume designer Paul Tazewell’s leather harnesses and gold hot pants (that’s the men) and slinky minidresses. As Jesus throws his temper tantrum, the dancers gyrate suggestively on metallic risers, performing Lisa Shriver’s choreography, which is a liability from start to finish and could be transplanted wholesale into a Britney Spears concert.

The effect is of a mildly naughty floor show at Caesars Palace. And in fact Las Vegas, where Mr. McAnuff’s “Jersey Boys” has recently reopened, might be the ideal destination for this slick production of a show that turns martyrdom into a splashy pop spectacle. Nothing like witnessing a Crucifixion to whet your appetite for the slot machines.

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